The number of subscribers to fixed broadband Internet services increased in the first half of this year, compared to the end of 2018, by 3.3% and totaled over 643.6 thousand. The share of subscribers who contracted fiber optic connections (FTTx) reached 65.5%, while number of xDSL technology subscribers equaled 26.7% and number of coaxial cable (DOCSIS) subscribers constituted 7.5%. Other types of connection accounted for 0.3%.
According to the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) data, during the first semester of the current year, the most important increases of cable Internet connections, according to the data transfer rates contracted by subscribers, occurred in the above 100 Mbps segment and in the 30 Mbps - 100 Mbps segment.
The number of subscribers who contracted the first type of connection has increased over the course of the first 6 months of the current year by 26.8% and reached 79.4 thousand, while the number of subscribers who contracted the second type of connection increased by 4.5% and totaled 354.2 thousand. The number of subscribers in the 10 Mbps - 30 Mbps segment decreased by 5.3% and equaled 184.1 thousand, while the number of clients of the 2 Mbps - 10 Mbps segment increased by 0.2%, totaling 8.4 thousand.
The same data points showed that the number of users connected via fiber optic cable increased by 6.9% and totaled 421.5 thousand, while the number of coaxial cable subscribers increased by 9.2% and equaled over 48.4 thousand. At the same time, the number of xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology subscribers decreased by 5.7% and totaled 171.7 thousand, while the number of subscribers connected via other technologies decreased by 21.9% and made up 1.9 thousand.
In the first semester of the year, broadband Internet access services revenues increased by 5.8% compared to the same period of 2018 and amounted to over 673.7 million lei. The average monthly revenue per subscriber (ARPU) for the respective services decreased by 1.2% and constituted 177.4 lei.
